DCR values into DCT

I am trying to take the values from a saved DCR and pass them into a DCT. For example we have a navigation component where the user enters Home, Search, News etc. through a replicant. I would like these values to appear in the next DCT via a select box.

I am assuming that this is an inline command, but I am really not sure how to even start. Has anyone had any experience with this? Any suggestions, sample code, advice would be greatly appreciated!

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Migrateduser

I am not quite sure I understand what you are asking. are you asking to have a select box in a completely different dct to have items listed from a dcr entered previously. or are you looking for a dct that is of the same type/catagory as your original dcr to be pre-populated from an existing dcr of the same type?

If might help a little if you outlined the dcr/dct structure that you are attempting to design. right now I am not sure anyone on the forum has enough information from you to even suggest where to start.

It does however sound like inline's might be a good place to start. The other thing that might be an idea to look into is to see if FormAPI might be able to help (this really depends on what you are attempting to do). The other option would be a cgi/java callout.

You might want to take a look at the example inline that comes with templating (look in iw-home/examples/Templating) to see how a very simple inline works.

tsuser

Let me start again. The structure is as follows without getting into too many confusing details. Under templatedata I have a category with 2 different types. The first type allows the user to enter a global navigation (home, news, contact, etc) and colors for the site and a few other items. (This will hardly ever need to be changed) Next the user will come to the second type, and it is in this DCT, I would like a select box with a list of the global navigation items the user would have provided via a replicant in the first type. So I am trying to have a select box in a completely different dct type populated with values from a different type.

I believe an inline is what I need so I shall start with the simple inline example. Thanks!

tvaughan

It sounds like you're allowing the entire look & feel of the site to be customized by making a change in one of the DCRs in your 'type A' DCRs.

I see what you're doing, but be careful about keeping it stable. What if someone deletes and submits all the DCRs in the 'type A' data directory? Your web publishing shuts down until you get them back.

Well, security aside, here's how I'd do it:

1) Standardize on the names of the DCRs in 'type A'. Something like:


type_a/data/colors    #for colors
type_a/data/fonts     #for fonts
type_a/data/gifs       #for gifs

You get the point.

Then, in your 'type B' DCT, have an inline callout like you said that will parse the file located in the STAGING area of the branch.

Let's say you wanted your 'type B' DCT to provide a drop down list of available images.

In your DCT, you could have:


                < select size="1" required="t">
                    < option label="Please Select" value="" selected="t" />
                    < inline command="/teamsite/iw-home/local/templating/scripts/get_images.ipl" />
                < /select>

Your get_images.ipl is just a simple perl script that is going to parse the file:
/iwmnt/default/main/your/branch/here/STAGING/category/typeb/data/images

You can use IW provided DCR parsing utilities if you want, or you can just open it up and suck out the data you need.

Then, at the end of your get_images.ipl script, loop over the data you found in your DCR and format it like an HTML select list.

Make sure to wrap everything you pass out of the ipl script with the "< substition>" tag.

Good luck,
Tom

Migrateduser

I would only have one thing to add to this. Remember that inline statements get run every time you open a dct that calls them. if say you have 100+ dcr's that the inline iterates through, then every time someone edits a dcr that uses this dct (new or otherwise) your inline will have to open 100+ dcr's and process them before the dct screen can be displayed.

Instead of doing this you might want to have some sort of external process index all of the dcr's that you are building your select list from ahead of time and build a static file that only gets rebuilt when needed (when the dcr's of type A are modified or a new one is added). This would allow your inline to call and open just one file that reads in the options list (opening of a single file instead of 100+ will save you a whole lot on startup times).

tsuser

It is now working! Thanks for your suggestions.

UT_CS_Hidroelectrica_del_Cantabrico_US_JUN0409_web.pdf

prasadanand

Hi tsuser..i am exactly trying to do what u have done here...and can u share with me snippets of what u have done in the get_images.ipl or the perl script u r using to parse....the information.